Growing Up Act 1

Maybe I should talk a little of how I was brought up. Things that happened when I was young.

I was the only child of the family. A little fat boy with a bigger-than-your-average head.

I was made to believe that I sucked in English since both my parents didn't get past secondary school and were brought up in Hokkien families and spoke no English. That explains I was never sent to a chinese school in my whole life.

I had no or little toys and I memorised the entire times table before K2. I had many Enid Blyton books and many chinese story books of course.

I managed to come up with soap operas, comedies, action dramas with the toys I had. Everyday is a different episode, some had sequels, it had fantastic dialogue and enchanting storylines. My favourite Ninja turtle was Donatello. My cousin's favourite turtle is surprising Donatello too. Yea. They sort of revived the cartoon I heard.



I always I thought I was Guo Jing watching Legend Of the Condor Heroes by Huang Ri Hua and Weng Mei Ling and it still remains my all-time favourite puglistic drama. Guo Jing and I have similar names.

I had a near perfect academic record in Primary school. But that is St.Stephen's School.

I was never out of the Top 3 in my six years. 4 1st in general proficiency. I topped chinese language every year. I was champion of Chinese story telling competition every year. I was also the 'Ji Gou Ba' champion, something which I was very proud of. My apprentices eventually dethroned me when I decided to retire. I had 30 over academic trophies in Primary school alone. I topped my school's PSLE with a score of 267. I never bettered that in the later stages.

On the other hand. I never passed any single physical fitness test. I remembered doing just 20 sit-ups in a minute when I was Pri 3. Hanging on the IFAH bar for 1 sec in Pri 4. I failed standing broad jump every year. I still do now. I was always the last few to be selected in soccer games. I joined recreational table tennis and I got thrashed everytime playing in my school canteen. I was pretty upset with my physical limitations.

My mother was ubiquitous throughout my life then. The disciplinarian and I was really terrified of her. She sent me and pick me up from school from nursery school all the way to Sec 1. I was a big joke among my classmates. The inevitable tag of 'mummy's boy' which I really hated it. She tried to find out every single thing that happened to me in school and monitored my academic results very closely. I was secretly afraid that she knew I was the 'Ji Gou Ba' champ.

Given my fantastic achievements in primary school. I was still caned regularly by mother I never knew why. Being the inactive and studious boy and physically unfit, I will never try to run from the cane. I never knew how to run away from it. I knew my mother will get me. I will just sit down and cry, both the fear and the pain.

My mother used to buy these assessment books for me. Primary 3 English comprehension. I was told to do Exercise X to Exercise Y. My mother kept the answers. I completed it and handed it to my mum. She began to check the answers and I could see her face changing. Very soon, she was fuming and out came the cane. I attempted to run only to step onto a sharp pencil which pierced my foot and left a scar for many years. The scar reminded me of this incident of how all my answers were right but not phrased to the ones in the answer. My mother never realised but I don't really blame her.

There was one particular day however after completing my homework, I decided to take a piss. When I came out of the toilet, my mother was there with the monopoly board game ready to play with me. A really lovely pleasant surprise that caught me. She was grinning widely and I couldn't recall whether it was any special occasion. It was a pretty short game but I was the happiest little boy for many days and till this day I remember it fondly.

It is indeed the smallest things that make people happy.